Calculations of effectiveness factors and the criteria of mass transfer effect for high-temperature methanation (HTM) catalyst

Natural gas is an extremely important bridge fuel to a low-carbon energy economy for improving local air quality. Coal to synthetic natural gas (SNG) is an effective way to convert the high-carbon energy (coal) into the low-carbon energy with rich hydrogen (natural gas). For the modern coal to SNG industry, the high-temperature methanation (HTM) catalyst plays an important role, and the advanced evaluation process should necessitate the elimination of mass transfer effect. Some simple but effective model catalysts, such as slab and sphere, can be very helpful in defining the reaction conditions, and thus facilitating the evaluation process for real HTM catalysts. In this work, slab and sphere model catalysts were adopted to derive mass transfer and reaction-coupled equations, the numerical methods were used to solve the coupled equations for the concentration profiles in catalysts, and the effectiveness factors were accordingly calculated. By taking advantage of the Thiele module φ and the Weisz–Prater module Φ, the criteria for the elimination of mass transfer effect in the HTM catalyst evaluation process were successfully defined. This work also complements the Weisz–Prater criterion by incorporating ‘negative reaction orders’.